Wesley McCraw's Blog, page 4

Why I’m Starting a Substack Newsletter

I’m starting a simple weekly newsletter on Substack. It will highlight some of the cool things I’ve discovered as I learn to write, program, and draw. Maybe some of the things that inspire me will also inspire you.

Why am I doing this?

Well, first, a little about Substack. Unlike many other platforms and email newsletter services, Substack is completely free for everyone to use, and they don’t even have ads like WordPress, Facebook, Tumblr, or Twitter. Substack only makes money when creators charge for content. Mailchimp’s newsletter service, for example, has a free-use limit of 1000 subscribers. This means I can use Substack for my mailing list and never pay a dime. If I every wanted to create a paid tier, like a new short story every month and preview chapters of my novels, I could add that at some point in the future without any further complications. I don’t think I’ll ever do that, but it’s a nice option.

If you know anything about self publishing, you’ll know that everyone advises you to start a mailing list. It’s the best way for authors to keep in contact with their readers. So that’s what I’m doing, and I’m starting simple.

This newsletter will be a good excuse to look back at the week and synthesize some of the information I’ve taken in. What brought me joy? What did I find useful? Because it’s a safe bet, you’re overwhelmed too and wouldn’t mind some curation.

Sign up HERE so you don’t miss the first issue.

Two Quick Things

I’m reviving this WordPress site and starting a Substack newsletter. My tiny mailing list is moving from Mailchimp to Substack, once I figure out how to do that, and here is the link to my Substack if you would like to sign up.

Twitter Break

I’m using February to finish the alpha draft of my horny dark fantasy novel, Eternal King. To accomplish this, I’ve decided to take a break from Twitter. I’ll be posting here, from time to time, to talk about my writing process and current projects.

The big plan is to write all three novels of The Bathhouse Trilogy before releasing the first volume. The three books of will be called Eternal King, Merchant Prince, and Pope Queen. Writing them will take at least a few more years, but I have a lot of little goals and projects before I get to that big finish line.

While I work on the trilogy, I’ll be studying visual art. I would like to start posting my own art to this blog before the end of the year with the goal of maybe painting my own book covers, and eventually (in ten years or so) drawing a graphic novel.

Planning so far into the future feels a bit silly, considering the state of the world, but this is more about the day to day process than an end point. I want to create visual art. I want to write books. The big challenge is figuring out how to do both.

Is Writing Worth It?

I know it’s taboo to advise asking yourself if writing is worth it, mainly because writers ask themselves this all the time without me advising you to, but I think it’s a valuable question, and we often don’t ask it in the right way.

Ignore all the self-doubt you feel. This question shouldn’t be about your skill or talent. I firmly believe that most people can be writers if they take the time. After all, it’s just putting down words, and most people can form coherent sentences and thoughts, so it’s not a big leap to make those thoughts and sentences into text.

But is it any good? you ask. Given enough time and practice, you’ll write something that someone thinks is good. No matter how well you write, someone will also think it’s bad. So really, all you can do is work hard and try to do the best you can, just like every other writer.

Which brings us to . . .

But is it worth it?

The first thing that may come to mind when you hear this question is monetary reward, or maybe if you’ve rejected capitalism, maybe you think of writing as your therapist, but there are easier ways to make money and you might should consider an actual therapist if you want therapy.

Maybe writing is a chance for you to hold power over something when your life feels so out of your hands. Is it healthy to spend so much of your life escaping? Probably not. The real world needs your help.

Maybe publishing a book would garner respect. From my experience, people respect you if you show them that you care about who they are as people. The average person doesn’t much care about the specifics of your accomplishments; they just care about how you make them feel. Publishing a book won’t change that.

[image error]Did it lead you to a dead end?

I’m sure some writers have made a ton of money, had amazing emotional breakthroughs, and earned the adoration of their peers, all the while, lording over their own creations and feeling like gods. But as you probably already know from experience, most writers have lives nothing like this, and even if they do, they are still making huge sacrifices. Even the hugely successful, if they are happy writing, aren’t doing it day in and day out for the things that often only look great from the outside.

Writing is about doing. Which means for writing to be worth it, it must be worth it in the doing.

You can get good things as a result of this doing, but writing is too damn time consuming. The rewards are almost never going to be good enough to validate all that effort. Because of this, the time you put in has to be the thing you cherish. If it’s not, you need to reconsider how you write.

That is why I’m reconsidering how I write.

Here are some ideas about writing that I’m still wresting with (feel free to add your own):

Is writing about reaching a mental state of flow? Is it about approaching the task with a sense of freedom and play? Is it about the mastery of a skill? Is it about fulfilling the basic human need to be creative? Is it about saying what no one else is saying so as to contribute to society? Is it about observation and truly engaging with the world? Is it about writing as if no one will ever read what you write so that you can be free to create something honest and uncensored? What combination of these things do I value enough to be my personal focus? What rewards from writing am I undervaluing, maybe that I’m even blind to? Maybe writing is about asking for help, no matter how much I don’t want this to be the case.

Writing is so many things before you ever reach any kind of goal. It would be tragic to miss all that, because that’s the actual life of a writer.

Find what you value in the doing so that writing can be worth it now.

A place to read The Forgiving for free.A novel of horror ...

A place to read The Forgiving for free.

A novel of horror and suspense.

Three lovers, as a way to save cash, seek out a real estate agency that specializes in poltergeist activity. What they find in their prospective house tests their faith in God and their faith in each other.

Here are the Table of Contents.

Or buy it from Amazon here.

 

A place to read The Forgiving for free.A novel of horr...

A place to read The Forgiving for free.

A novel of horror and suspense.

Three lovers, as a way to save cash, seek out a real estate agency that specializes in poltergeist activity. What they find in their prospective house tests their faith in God and their faith in each other.

Here are the Table of Contents.

Or buy it from Amazon here.

 

Interactive Fiction RPG

This year, I’m taking a break from writing a traditional novel. Instead, I’m using Twine to create a dark fantasy interactive fiction RPG.

Six months in, I’m a little overwhelmed, but I’m trying to power through. The game focuses on romantic relationships, so there is a lot of conversations, but there’s a strong exploration element too, so there is also a lot of game design and setting descriptions. When all is said and done, it should be three times more words than a normal novel.

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Its working title is Bathhouse: The Desiccation. The world hub of the game is a sacred bathhouse. The Desiccation is a coming scourge that the three heroes must stop.

I’ve always hated dealing with a text parser, so while it’s a text adventure game, there’s no typing. It’s a bit like a Choose Your Own Adventure book with more freedom to move around locations. While there are battles, they aren’t the focus of the gameplay.

I’ve been thinking about this game for a few years now, but I always thought I would need a large team to create it. By using Twine, I realized a could make a text version. So while it was originally envisioned to be more like Quest for Glory, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Dark Souls, it still works surprisingly well as a text game. It explores adult themes in a way that I think is new and interesting, in ways that are probably too edgy for a mainstream game.

I’ll try to keep you updated on its progress.

Faith

I’m suddenly very at peace with the world.

Which is weird.

I just got this wave of faith in humanity.

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People change. Things change, sometimes even for the better. People can believe stupid stuff right now, but it doesn’t mean they’ll believe it forever. People really do learn.

And yes, I get that the opposite is also true. Some people won’t learn or change. Some things will just pretty much always be a problem.

But the fact there is that possibility for good . . . That’s amazing.

The House of Cabal Trilogy

The House of Cabal volumes one through three are now available. It’s a dark fantasy series I’ve been working on for the past twenty years. Each volume is 45-52 thousand words (long novelas?). The series is fairly pulpy with plenty of sex, violence, and plot twists.

I know that the amount of people that have read the first two volumes is rather small, but I hope eventually, House of Cabal will catch on. In the next few months, I’ll do my best to promote the trilogy.

The first promotion will be volume one Eden free Thursday and Friday.

You can buy volume three HERE.

 

House of Cabal Vol. 3 Preview

House of Cabal Vol. 3 is almost finished. If you are curious about what’s in store, I posted the first chapter HERE for you to read.

If you haven’t read the first volume, it will be free on Amazon later this week.

Back to copyediting!